Mid-Year 2023 EIC Accelerator Trends
The EIC Accelerator programme maintains its rollercoaster reputation in 2023, headlined by an abrupt switch in the application process in June.
Let’s look at the last two cutoffs to assess where the program is going.
Increased competition in June cut-off
With 648 full proposals submitted, the 21 June deadline marks the most competitive cutoff to date this year as compared to January (476) and March (551).
Proposals are currently being evaluated by independent experts with invitations to pitch before a jury panel in September expected by the end of this month.
Do Challenge applications offer a competitive edge?
A total of 51 companies secured EIC Accelerator funding in the March cutoff with 47% representing the healthcare sector. Selected from 139 invited to the interview, this represents a 36.69% success rate at this stage.
Despite this being a Challenge cutoff, with 83 applying to one of the seven earmarked funding topics, just nine companies fitting these categories were financed:
- “Emerging semiconductor or quantum technology components” (2)
- “Novel technologies for resilient agriculture” (2)
- “Customer-driven, innovative space technologies and services” (2)
- “Novel biomarker-based assays to guide personalized cancer treatment” (1)
- “Energy storage” (1) and
- “New European Bauhaus and Architecture, Engineering and Construction digitalization for decarbonization” (1).
No companies have been selected for the “Aerosol and Surface Decontamination for Pandemic Management” Challenge thus far.
This leaves plenty of the €523.5M budget still on the table for the June and October deadlines. So far,Challenge proposalsdo not necessarily present a competitive advantage (10.8% success rate on the Challenge vs. 9.0% success rate on the Open).
The winning companies from March represent a range of financing types: blended finance (23), grant first (22), and grant only (6). Leading counties include the Netherlands (8) and France (6) with the UK and Israel following closely (5).
The last cut-off for full proposals this year will be 4 October 2023 with new cutoff dates for 2024 to be announced in late autumn.
Do you have what it takes to be an EIC Accelerator winner? Our expert team can help.